


Words and Words: An Action

by Thia (Jennaria)



Series: Slow Growing Things [4]
Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Anal Fingering, M/M, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-09-18
Updated: 2002-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:29:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24377269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jennaria/pseuds/Thia
Summary: Sam continues to consider alternatives, Frodo proves he is not helpless in the kitchen, and experimentation begins. To paraphrase a fanfic from a different fandom altogether: "The conclusion of a thought must be an action."
Relationships: Frodo Baggins/Sam Gamgee
Series: Slow Growing Things [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1696261
Kudos: 6





	Words and Words: An Action

**Author's Note:**

> The Usual Suspect asked me if Frodo and Sam had actually said _I love you_ to each other. Well, no. And that idea, combined with 'A Thought', led to 'An Action'. For those who are curious: no, Frodo's not following a recipe, so I can't provide you with one. (And the not-quite-quotation in the summary is from Hiperbunny's Star Wars fic, unfortunately not on AO3, Bonds of Choice: Satori, Vin-Dit, Tsunami.)

On the occasions when Sam thought about it (which was more often than he admitted to Mr. Frodo, or even to himself), he'd -- well, he'd assumed that matters would take a certain path. Turning the tables once or twice was one thing -- Mr. Frodo hadn't objected to the blindfold, nor yet to Sam holding down those clever hands while Sam explored him with kisses and gentle mouthings. But this? Sam wasn't sure he'd dare touch Mr. Frodo so intimately, much less allow Mr. Frodo to touch him so.

"You needn't worry so, Sam," Frodo told him, a few weeks after they'd first spoken of the matter.

"I'm not, sir," Sam said, though he didn't sound convincing even to his own ears.

Frodo sighed, and accepted the armful of fresh-grown carrots Sam had brought in from the garden. "Does this mean you'll not stay with me tonight?"

"Sir!" Sam looked around nervously to see if anyone had heard.

Frodo's soft laughter didn't soothe him one bit, and Sam gave his master a stern look. Frodo ducked his head a bit, though a smile lingered on his lips. "Your Gaffer's down in the lower garden, tending to the potatoes," he said, not sounding particularly repentant. "And we'd hear anyone else coming."

"It's not something to be careless about," Sam said.

Frodo must have heard something more in Sam's voice than Sam meant, because he looked up at that, studying Sam with those blue eyes. Sam tried not to squirm. Sometimes those eyes made him want to strip off his clothes, but sometimes they made him feel as though Frodo could see _through_ his clothes, and through his skin too.

"No," Frodo said at last, each word careful and chosen. "It's not." He set the carrots down on the kitchen table, and reached out to stroke his fingertips down Sam's cheek. Sam held still, not daring to look away from Frodo's eyes. Frodo's fingers felt cool on his face, not quite the kind of tease Frodo liked to torment Sam with, but neither something just for reassurance.

"No," Frodo repeated, but soft, as if he were speaking to himself. His hand dropped back to his side.

Sam waited a minute more, then said, "Master?"

Frodo smiled a little, then went to the cutting block, considering the knives there along its side as if they were more important than they seemed.

"Mr. Frodo?" Sam persisted.

"Do you want to come to Bag End tonight?" Frodo said, not looking away from the knives.

"More than anything."

That won him Mr. Frodo turning back around, though his smile had got twisted somewhere along the way. "Oh, Sam," he said. "How did I deserve you?"

Sam opened his mouth to ask what Frodo meant, then hesitated. "It's not about deserving, sir," he said instead.

"Then what is it about?" Frodo leaned back against the cutting block, watching Sam with that little twisted smile that sat odd on Mr. Frodo's sweet face.

"I don't know, sir," Sam said honestly. "I'm just a gardener."

Frodo made a sound that might have been the breath of a laugh, might have been a noise of exasperation. He abandoned the cutting block for long enough to come forward and brush a kiss over Sam's lips. "Tonight," he said quietly, then turned back to chop the carrots up for stew. Sam went back out into the garden, even more confused.

The Gaffer raised no objections to Sam's going up to Bag End that evening, though he gave Sam his usual warning about not getting ideas above his station.

"Mr. Frodo's not like to object to me saying a word or two," Sam protested, also as usual. "It was him as issued the invitation."

"No more did Mr. Bilbo object to my saying a word when it was warranted," the Gaffer said. "But he was still the master. I don't want to hear you've been presuming."

"I wouldn't presume on Mr. Frodo!"

The Gaffer waved that off. "I'm not sayin' that -- no more you would. But you'd best mind what other folk would say."

Not for the first time, Sam wondered how much his Gaffer knew about what really went on behind the closed doors of Bag End. Not for the first time, he didn't ask. He mumbled acknowledgement and thanks for the advice, and made his escape.

He found Frodo still chopping -- not carrots, any more, nor potatoes, but something else that Sam didn't immediately recognize. Some sort of mushroom, he guessed after a minute of watching Mr. Frodo reduce it to neat square pieces. He wasn't about to ask: when Mr. Frodo got into this sort of mood, best to simply sit on the edges of the kitchen and keep his tongue between his teeth. If he tried to turn Mr. Frodo back to his books or some such, and get him to leave the cooking to Sam, they'd merely end with ripped pages, spilt ink, and Mr. Frodo in a terrible temper. If he let Mr. Frodo cook things out instead -- well, the result might taste naught like the stew Sam's mam used to make, but Sam had never choked on it yet.

Frodo gave no sign he'd noticed Sam had arrived. After he'd finished chopping up the possibly-mushroom, he abandoned his knife and the cutting block to give the stew a stir and a taste, then added a sprinkle more pepper. "Only a few minutes more," he said, speaking for the first time since Sam stepped into the kitchen. "Would you mind setting the table?"

The stew proved to be as un-stew-like as Sam expected, but tasty nonetheless. Sam looked up from his bowl every so often to find Frodo watching him, blue-eyed gaze on him like a touch along his neck, down along his arms and against his hands. For all it made him shiver, it also reminded him uncomfortably of the time just before Frodo kissed him for the first time -- as if Mr. Frodo was plotting something in that mind of his, something more than the feel of Sam's hands on him.

"I'll do the washing up," Sam said at last, rising from the table.

"I'll help," Frodo said, and followed Sam into the kitchen again.

"Er -- Mr. Frodo --"

"Just with the dishes, Sam."

Sam watched Frodo as they washed and dried the plates and pot. His nerves turned to puzzlement as he did so. Oh, Mr. Frodo watched him, but not like he wanted to pounce. More like, well, like he was thinking.

"Is something wrong, sir?"

"No," Frodo said, but he hesitated as he said it.

"Is it --" Sam put away the last plate and turned to face Frodo, licking his lips as he tried to think of the right words. "Is there anything I can do to help, Mr. Frodo?"

"Do you love me, Sam?"

Sam felt as though his world should spin -- wasn't that what the storytellers said? But only his belly tensed up, and his heart pounded a mite faster in chest and wrists and ears. The kitchen stayed the way it was, and Mr. Frodo too, except that his face looked wide and open, and those blue eyes dark and lost.

"I don't rightly know, Mr. Frodo," he said, and dared to reach out and caress Frodo's face the way Frodo had caressed his, only that afternoon. "I wouldn't lie with you if I felt nothing -- but I don't know..."

"Neither do I," Frodo whispered, and turned his face into Sam's hand so his words were muffled and hard to hear. "I long for you until I can hardly see, until I can hardly think...but I don't know how much of that is just..."

"Wanting a tumble," Sam supplied when Frodo hesitated, and won a laugh from his master.

"If it were just 'wanting a tumble', Sam, I think you're well and truly tumbled!"

"Not by some lights," Sam said before he thought.

Frodo's smile faded, and Sam could feel heat bloom against his palm as Frodo's cheeks flushed with a bit of embarassment. "Well. Yes. According to some definitions of virginity, I suppose."

"You want that." He'd seen it in Frodo's eyes, that night by the fire, before Frodo realized how Sam's thoughts were going.

Frodo's hand came up to grasp hold of Sam's, as if he were afraid Sam would step away, and he looked up at Sam again. "Yes." He blew out a breath, puff of warm air against Sam's wrist. "But I won't push you."

Sam opened his mouth, and realized he'd no words to say. Frodo must have seen that, because he kept on. "I won't give you up, either, Samwise Gamgee, no matter what we do or don't do when we lie together, so don't you go suggesting it."

"It might be worth trying," Sam heard himself say.

Frodo looked nearly as surprised as Sam felt. "What?"

"Just...trying. Some of what they talked about." Sam already felt an utter fool, but in for a drop, in for a bucketful. "Seeing if it works."

"I think it works," Frodo said dryly, though his eyes were still wide. "You haven't heard all Merry's stories."

"No more I want to! But that's them, sir." And this is us. He didn't need to finish the sentence: Frodo was already smiling at him in wry agreement.

"You're a reckless hobbit, Sam," Frodo said. "But if you want to do this..."

He did, now that he thought about it. Not precisely what Merry and Pippin had taken such glee in describing to them, that night in the Green Dragon, but the chance to touch Mr. Frodo all over, not letting even his own uncertainty getting in the way. "I want to touch you."

"Shall I find a handkerchief again?"

"No." Sam took a deep breath. "I want you to watch."

*

Sam's courage did not extend to teasing Mr. Frodo with a slow undressing. His hands still went to Mr. Frodo's buttons before his own, but that was no more than sense. He couldn't touch Frodo through waistcoat and shirt and all. Frodo didn't argue the matter. He merely started on Sam's buttons, a smile crossing his face occasionally when his hands got in the way of Sam's, or Sam's in the way of his.

At last both of them stood naked, their clothing crumpled on the floor, or tossed half across the room. Frodo took Sam by the wrist and tugged him to the bed, but Sam resisted. "I thought--"

"You will," Frodo said as they reached the bed. He let go of Sam, and sprawled back over the coverlet. The dark gold of the quilt made his pale skin seem to glow. "But we have to start somewhere."

Sam's breath caught in his throat as he drank in the sight of Mr. Frodo lying there, smiling up at him, legs parted like he invited Sam between them. Tookish perversions indeed. "Move over, Mr. Frodo." Sam climbed onto the bed as well, kneeling beside Frodo. There he hesitated.

"Sam?"

This was harder than he'd thought. The thought of touching Mr. Frodo like that warmed Sam so his face flushed and his breathing came fast, but he'd mostly touched Frodo in the heat-haze of arousal, with Frodo touching him as well and no time to think about where his hands should go. The few times otherwise, Mr. Frodo hadn't been able to see him hesitate like this. "Just deciding," Sam said, and bent to kiss Frodo, open-mouthed and slippery. This he knew how to do.

Frodo let him go when Sam backed off again, though both of them were panting a little. Sam swallowed, tasting Frodo on his tongue, then swung his leg over Frodo and sat on his master's hips, holding Frodo down. Now he could touch, all he wanted, and Frodo could only watch.

The smooth downiness of Frodo's cheek, first -- it moved under Sam's fingertips as Frodo smiled up at him. Up and back to the silken hairs just at the nape of Frodo's neck, hidden under the gentle weight of his curls -- Frodo tipped his head back to let Sam's fingers wander. His eyes drifted closed, and his smile widened until Sam half-expected him to start purring. Sam sat back carefully, and traced down Mr. Frodo's skin, from neck to the smooth expanse of chest, with two rosy nipples tightening under the brush of Sam's fingers. Frodo gasped if Sam tugged at them with finger and thumb -- he must remember that, Sam thought through the blur his mind had become -- and if Sam bit, just gently, then Frodo moaned Sam's name aloud.

"Soon," Sam promised, hardly knowing what he was saying, and slid off Frodo again. Frodo tried to press up against him as he moved off, but the sliding pressure gave no more than a tease to either of them. "Soon -- gently, Mr. Frodo." Move. He had to move, didn't he? Frodo parted his legs gladly enough, so Sam half-knelt, half-sprawled between them. Unable to resist, Sam leaned down again and kissed the skin just over Frodo's heart.

Frodo made a soft noise and moved under him, arousal hot and hard against Sam's belly. Sam's hips jerked forward of their own accord, and he sat up again, breathing hard, before he could lose control entirely. He could feel his arms, his legs, his entire body trembling with this. Months together, and still Frodo could reduce him to no more than -- than -- "Gently," Sam said again, stroking Frodo's thigh, though he couldn't have said whether he spoke to Frodo or to himself.

"Don't want gentle," Frodo said. His eyes had darkened, nearly all pupil now. "Do --" He arched up against Sam's hand. "Do _something_."

Sam looked down at his hands. The skin of Frodo's inner thighs was soft and smooth under his fingers, softer than any flower petal he'd ever touched out in the garden. I want to try, he'd told Frodo.

Frodo raised his hips at Sam's tug, letting his thighs rest on Sam's. His breath came in rapid gasps, and his eyes squeezed shut as Sam cautiously reached between them, sliding his fingers along unexplored territory. A touch _here_ made Frodo stop breathing entirely, and tremble more than Sam. And back here -- hot, hot as fever or summer drought. Sam spat on his fingers to wet them, then tried again, pressing gently.

Frodo let out a soft breathless gasp, and Sam stopped short. "Are you all right, sir?"

"I...I don't know," Frodo said. His eyes opened, but he didn't seem to see Sam, or anything else neither, eyes wide and staring. "Do it again."

Sam pressed his fingers in again, watching Frodo carefully. One finger slipped inside. Frodo's breath caught again, and he moved into Sam's hand, pushing into the gentle pressure and relaxing again. Sam felt his heart swell: Frodo liked it, liked this strange new thing!

Ah, but he'd like it better if Sam could only keep his wits about him, rather than let himself get swept up in the oddness of it all. Sam shifted backwards, lowered his head and took Frodo into his mouth, just a taste. He heard Frodo cry out, and then buck up, pulling free of Sam's finger. Sam backed off a bit, startled, and then he heard what Frodo was saying.

"Ah -- please, Sam! More!"

Sam bent over his master again, hiding his smile by taking Frodo into his mouth again, more carefully this time. The taste of musk and salt went straight to his head, rousing him so his hands tightened on Frodo's hips harder than he meant. He remembered just in time, and wet his fingers again. Not just mouth, but fingers as well, pressing in like _this_ \--

Frodo lasted longer than he had the last time Sam tasted him -- the newness and uncertainty taking the edge off arousal. But Frodo quivered under Sam's lightest touch, and stiffened entirely when Sam's fingers accidentally went deep and touched something that made Frodo scream. Sam suckled at him like a babe at the teat, enjoying the taste and the sounds Frodo made, broken words and noises of pleasure. When at last Frodo gave up his last thread of control, thrusting up into Sam's throat, Sam drank him down, then pulled his hand free and sat up, licking at his lips.

"I am never allowing you to talk to Merry and Pippin again," Frodo said weakly. One arm covered his eyes, and he lay on the bed as though he'd melted onto the sheets.

"Sir?" If he moved just a bit to the right, Sam thought hazily, he could collapse onto the bed himself.

"If they give you any more ideas, I may not live through it." Frodo removed his arm from his eyes, and looked at Sam, eyes lingering on Sam's belly. "Neither may you -- you enjoyed that, didn't you?" One hand came out to touch the wet proof of how much Sam had enjoyed it.

Sam flushed, and squirmed over to lie down next to Mr. Frodo. "Don't see how I couldn't," he said softly. "With the noises you were making."

"Oh, don't remind me!" Frodo blushed himself, then leaned over and kissed Sam. "Stay?"

He didn't mean just tonight -- Sam could hear the hope in Frodo's voice, too much for just one night. He meant something more like they'd spoke of in the kitchen, something longer and deeper.

"Yes, sir," Sam said. And he meant something more, too.


End file.
